Refuse Quotes - Page 26

• To love the truth is to refuse to let oneself be saddened by it.

  Andre Gide

  Truth, Saddened, Oneself

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• Take the good with the evil, for ye all are pensioners of God, and none may choose or refuse the cup His wisdom mixeth.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Evil, May, Cups

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1871). “Proverbial philosophy: in 4 ser., now first complete”, p.13

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• A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked... . We as black people, we as people, we as the human species have got to get used to the fact we're not going to be right most of the time, not even when our intentions are good. We've got to go naked and see what happens.

  Nikki Giovanni

  People, Black, Naked

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• I believe serious progress (in the abolition of war) can be achieved only when men become organized on an international scale and refuse, as a body, to enter military or war service.

  Albert Einstein

  Military, War, Believe

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.249, Princeton University Press

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• I appeal to all men and women, whether they be eminent or humble, to declare that they will refuse to give any further assistance to war or the preparation of war.

  Albert Einstein

  War, Humble, Men

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.250, Princeton University Press

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• Our civilization, bequeathed to us by fierce adventurers, eaters of meat and hunters, is so full of hurry and combat, so busy about many things which perhaps are of no importance, that it cannot but see something feeble in a civilization which smiles as it refuses to make the battlefield the test of excellence.

  James Joyce

  Buddhism, Civilization, Excellence

  James Joyce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of James Joyce (Illustrated)”, p.2227, Delphi Classics

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• It is superstitious to put one's hopes in formalities, but arrogant to refuse to submit to them.

  Blaise Pascal

  Arrogant, Ceremony, Submit

  Blaise Pascal (1966). “Pascal Pensées”, Penguin Classics

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• You must not refuse any additional cups of tea under the following circumstances: if it is hot; if it is cold; if you are tired; if anybody thinks that you might be tired; if you are nervous; if you are gay; before you go out; if you are out; if you have just returned home; if you feel like it; if you do not feel like it; if you have had no tea for some time; if you have just had a cup.

  George Mikes

  Home, Tired, Gay

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• Long-married couples balance their checkbooks as a substitute for love-making, or they refuse each other love by protesting one another's financial error or excess.

  Diana Trilling

  Marriage, Couple, Errors

  Diana Trilling (1981). “Mrs. Harris: the death of the Scarsdale diet doctor”, Harcourt

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• I hate to be treated as if I'm invisible. I get incensed when people talk across me or refuse to catch my eye in a restaurant or shop.

  Lynne Truss

  Hate, Eye, People

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• Women like other women fine. The more feminine she is, the more comfortable a woman feels with her own sex. It is only the occasional and therefore noticeable adventuress who refuses to make friends with us.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Sex, Women, Feminine

  Phyllis McGinley (1962). “The province of the heart”

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• I suppose if I had my time again I would refuse it and stay at Fulham because I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, and secondly I would have taken it on my own terms.

  Kevin Keegan

  Taken, Fulham, Term

  "Keggy: I wish I'd turned England job down". www.mirror.co.uk. May 5, 2011.

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• The soul is that which denies the body. For example, that which refuses to run when the body trembles, to strike when the body is angry, to drink when the body is thirsty.

  Alain-Rene Lesage

  Inspirational, Running, Soul

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• Tremble with awe, O men! The insults God suffered for the sake of our salvation you too must endure! God is slapped on the face by the basest of slaves (Jn. 18:22). He gives you an example of victory, yet do you refuse to undergo this at the hands of a man of like passions as yourself? You are ashamed of becoming an imitator of God (Eph. 5:1), how then will you reign with Him and share in His glory in the kingdom of heaven if you do not endure that man?

  Symeon the New Theologian

  Christian, Passion, Men

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• Some have narrowed their minds, and so fettered them with the chains of antiquity that not only do they refuse to speak save as the ancients spake, but they refuse to think save as the ancients thought. God speaks to us, too, and the best thoughts are those now being vouchsafed to us. We will excel the ancients!

  Girolamo Savonarola

  Wisdom, Thinking, Mind

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• Those of us who refuse to risk and grow get swallowed up by life.

  Patti Hansen

  Adventure, Risk, Grows

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• I certainly was surprised to be named Poet Laureate of this far-out city on the left side of the world, and I gratefully accept, for as I told the Mayor, "How could I refuse?" I'd rather be Poet Laureate of San Francisco than anywhere because this city has always been a poetic center, a frontier for free poetic life, with perhaps more poets and more poetry readers than any city in the world.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Cities, San Francisco, World

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (2001). “San Francisco Poems”, p.11, City Lights Books

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• Thus, if there is anyone who is confident that he can advise me as to the best advantage of the state in this campaign which I am about to conduct, let him not refuse his services to the state, but come with me into Macedonia. I will furnish him with his sea-passage, with a horse, a tent, and even travel-funds. If anyone is reluctant to do this and prefers the leisure of the city to the hardships of campaigning, let him not steer the ship from on shore.

  Livy

  Horse, Sea, Cities

  Book 44, chapter 22. Reported in "Livy" by Alfred C. Schlesinger, vol. 13, p. 161, 1951.

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• I suppose we all tend to remember only the happiness from our childhood, as a sundial refuses to tell the time except in fine weather.

  Bernard Levin

  Weather, Childhood, Remember

  Bernard Levin (1984). “Enthusiasms”, Random House Value Publishing

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• We all know that a sympathetic and intelligent listener not only flatters our vanity, but also frequently enables us to crystallize our own ideas to the best advantage. Why, then, do we so often refuse to perform this service?

  Thomas F. Wilson

  Intelligent, Vanity, Ideas

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• Once in a while there are things the brain simply refuses to accept as being true because they appear too improbable, too unlikely, too preposterous.

  Walter Abish

  Truth, Brain, Accepting

  Walter Abish (1980). “How German Is It”, p.44, New Directions Publishing

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• Servant leadership always empathizes, always accepts the person, but sometimes refuses to accept some of the person's effort or performance as good enough.

  Robert K. Greenleaf

  Effort, Servant Leadership, Sometimes

  Robert K. Greenleaf, Larry C. Spears (2002). “Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness”, p.43, Paulist Press

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• Unless criticism refuses to take itself quite so seriously or at least to permit its readers not to, it will inevitably continue to reflect the finicky canons of the genteel tradition and the depressing pieties of the Culture Religion of Modernism.

  Leslie Fiedler

  Depressing, Culture Religion, Criticism

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• I refuse to this day to do e-mail because everybody I know that does it, it takes another two or three hours a day. I don't want to give two or three more hours away.

  Jeff Foxworthy

  Two, Giving, Doe

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• I absolutely refuse to accept the fact that any country in the world goes into a kind of film-making crisis. What happens is they lose confidence, they lose focus and the young film-makers of any particular generation can very easily get lost in that mix. It's happened in Italy, happened in France, happened in the U.K. during my lifetime.

  David Puttnam

  Country, Focus, Generations

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